Mainstreaming Mobile Health

The present day world order strives to deliver first-class, safe, and affordable healthcare facilities to the citizens. The various healthcare systems, along with a legal national or a regional authority, endeavours to realize this aspiration and make it happen in reality. However, growing healthcare challenges are not just limited to the developed economies- many under-developed and emerging markets find it equally hard to provide full access to effective quality healthcare services to its consumers. Cost, appropriate qualitative standards, and inability to provide equal access to the consumers are some of the impediments associated with the healthcare sector. One needs to overcome these obstacles by adopting innovative and modern approaches for delivering services.

An upcoming and prominent area of such innovation with a huge market potential is mHealth, i.e. efficient use of mobile communication technologies for proper deliverance of healthcare services. It can be seen as an interconnection between health, technology, and economy; and can act as a viable business solution to health-related products in the market. According to BIS Research, “The mHealth services dominated the market in 2014, and are expected to grow over $55.63 billion by the end of the forecast period due to the increasing deployment of mHealth solutions by healthcare providers and pharmaceuticals along with end users (patients).” Instances of mHealth technologies can be: SMS alerts for patients to take proper medication and attend appointments, remote treatment of patients who do not have simple access to doctors, Health Monitoring devices to track the health conditions of patients, among others.

Major sectors including businesses, NGOs, governments etc. have profited from mHealth applications posing as a new entrant in the field of healthcare technologies. Eminent names engaged in this domain are Fitbit, Apple, Nike, Jawbone, Zephyr Technology, and many more.

Furthermore, accessibility of mHealth products can be used to develop effective awareness of public health on a large scale, for instance, using mobile tools to reduce the number of people affected with diabetes, heart attack, and other diseases; and help people who need scheduled monitoring and medication.

Customer demands for health ‘apps’ and sensors has led to a gradual growth of the mHealth technology in developed countries, and the developing nations, although lagging, are not too far behind. Moreover, the evolution of a cutting edge and highly modernized technology like mHealth and the colossal recognition its garnering world-wide, proves that the market is ready and willing to innovate and experiment with out-of-the-box things and provide further improvised quality of products to its consumers.